By Margarita de Vega, professor “Practical aspects of data protection: legitimation and rights” in the Master in Compliance & Data Protection Directorate of the EIP International Business School wanted to share the following post about requesting job references.
Request for job references?
If a former employee of your organization is in a selection process, you may receive a call from the final company or the Head Hunter asking for references.
Asking for job references is not illegal in itself, what is illegal is giving them if we are not authorized.
Think that you are providing information, data of a worker and beyond consent, there is no basis that legitimizes this.
If I am the DPO of your company, no matter how much I read and reread the RGPD or the Organic Law, I will not find any legal loophole, legitimate interest, or need that we can resort to and justify this treatment and more, if the employment relationship It's over now.
On the part of those who request, receive and process references, they cannot find any justification or necessary measure in order to formalize an employment contract with the candidate, since the employer can do so without the opinion of third parties about their work capacity, their skills, their style. direction, his character, his quirks, if he smokes or drinks. Another thing is that the opinion of others can help the choice, but convenience should not be confused with necessity. While necessity would justify the processing of personal data, convenience would not.
Therefore, not only the principle of legality is being violated, but also the principle of minimization that forces the data controller to collect and process “only” the appropriate, relevant and necessary data.
Conclusion
Both to ask and to give, you need the express consent of the person. If you like to give job references, we can always write an express consent model for you and have it available for convenient use.
Do you want to specialize in Compliance Management and data protection?
He Master in Compliance & Data Protection Management will make you a highly qualified professional with the necessary skills to carry out specialized tasks in two of the most relevant areas for both private businesses as for public administrations: data protection and regulatory compliance or Compliance.
Having said the above...therefore, if there is no type of explicit requirement from the former official regarding giving references, there is no fraud if this information is provided at the request of a potential employer. Did I understand correctly?